The last time I wrote a note about our anniversary, we were turning three years old and limited ourselves to a small get together in what were then our offices on Club Street.

This month, we celebrate eight years since the launch of the site and things look a lot different.

For starters, we are in much bigger offices than we could have imagined back then, housing what is undoubtedly Singapore biggest and best walk-in closet. But also our industry and the perception of it has changed radically since we first started talking about the business we wanted to launch.

In a world where entrepreneurship is often romanticised, I find myself lacking the words to describe what the last eight years have been like, but it’s definitely not romantic. Despite my obsessive note-taking and the many outlines I’ve written up over the years, it’s all a blur. Maybe that’s exactly what building a business is? An imperfect and unpredictable affair moving at high speed, impossible to fully digest and summarize neatly.

For me, it’s a series of crushing lows and exalting highs, sometimes on the same day for added fun, connected together by periods solving problem. Most of what I do all day is solve problems big and small. Once you’re in it, there’s actually not a lot of time for executing on that famous vision. And when you when are done climbing one hill, there is a mountain to climb just behind it. The pace can be exhilarating and at the same time is absolutely exhausting.

At THE FIFTH COLLECTION, we are always so laser-focused on delivering a best-in-class customer experience and building a solid business beneath it, that we often forget to express our gratitude and share our triumphs. We’re often already on the next big thing we need to achieve before the proverbial ink has dried on the last thing, and we forget to take the time to celebrate achievements, such as this anniversary.

If that sounds like false modesty, check our LinkedIn account: in the last 8 years we probably posted a handful of times when we should have been shouting at the top of our lung about the talented individuals that make THE FIFTH COLLECTION possible. So here we go:

We are so grateful for our team, our collectors, our friends, our families and our investors. We are also thankful that we managed to survive two very difficult years of pandemic, even though we had to drastically cut expenses to make it work. Not only did we survive, we thrived, generating high double-digit growth year-on-year despite zero digital marketing spend. More importantly, we did not have to cut any jobs during the pandemic thanks to the sacrifices and solidarity of our team.

We managed to find a bigger space in the middle of the pandemic, moving in right after lockdown. Not only was it the perfect place to accommodate our growing business, but we managed to stay central and not sacrifice any of the practicalities that mean so much to our team and make our day-to-day working life just that little bit more enjoyable. We’re in Singapore, so by that I mean that we have some of Singapore’s best eateries all around the office! 😋 We hope that in the near future we will be able to host you in our new space.

We won not 1, not 2 but 3 sustainable awards and THE FIFTH COLLECTION got an in-person congratulatory fist bump from Singapore’s Minister for Sustainability and the Environment, Ms, Grace Fu. And we were named Corporate Sponsor of the Year for Dress for Success, a charitable organization helping disadvantaged women break the cycle of poverty.

After eight years in the resale industry, many competitors old and new, in Singapore and abroad, have taken notice and have emulated many of the things we do. Thanks to this, many things that were firsts at THE FIFTH COLLECTION have become industry standards, changing things for the better for collectors everywhere and for the better of the planet. As a result, our influence can be felt well beyond the limits our own business.

I recognise that we may not share much about the behind the scenes at THE FIFTH COLLECTION, or that we not be as eager as our peers to constantly be in the press, but that is probably because we believe that the proof is in the pudding. We believe that if you build a strong business, the rest will follow.

Our data shows that we manage to sell 85% of everything that we list and yes TODAY WE CAN HUMBLE BRAG.

But what we are truly proudest of is not the business metrics or any external recognition, it’s in the human connections we have been able to establish over the years. When I sit down for the one-on-one reviews at the beginning of the year, one thing keeps coming back over and over again: everybody loves working at THE FIFTH COLLECTION. We have grown over the last 8 years, many faces are the same since day one, some faces are new, and other faces have gone on to blossom in their chosen path as TFC Alumni, making us proud.

One thing that has stayed the same is that our team supports each other even in the tougher and more stressful moments. And we have been part of some of our collectors’ lives from university to graduation to engagement to wedding and now first or even second child! We’re very proud of this and we are also proud to announce the first TFC baby arriving very soon as one of our teammates just left on her maternity leave!

THE FIFTH COLLECTION is growing and so are the different individuals that makes us who we are and if you ask me this a HELL OF AN ACCOMPLISHMENT.